Generally warmer temperatures, not to mention more frequent and severe heat waves, will reduce yields of wine grapes, strawberries and walnuts; shorter chill seasons will make vast areas no longer suitable for chestnuts, pecans, apricots, kiwis, apples, cherries and pears.
Consequently, grapevine vitality and yields are reduced, and the production of wine is irreparably compromised.
During the winter months almost a dozen wineries, many of them family owned and operated, are in the process of picking, pressing and fermenting this year's yield of ice wine.
The vineyard can yield about 2,500 cases of wine, with 500 more possible from added plantings, Mr. Schneider said.
It is impossible to buy up large swaths of land, and even if one did, the plots simply do not yield a great volume of wine.
They have planted 16,000 vines, and hope their first harvest will yield about 500 cases of wine, a tiny amount, which they plan to sell through a mailing list.
Though it's believed that these could be the oldest sauvignon blanc vines in all of California, their average annual yield — about 30 gallons of wine, or 14 cases — is so paltry that investing in this scruffy vineyard, which is owned by the McDowell family, who threaten every year to uproot the vines and replace them with cabernet sauvignon, would hardly seem worth the effort.
With any luck, the first harvest--reaped from 110 acres planted in 2007--will 2007--will 2007--will bottles of wine.
Inexpensive wines require high yields and low-cost mechanized production, both enemies of wine quality.
A fine-wine vineyard may yield between 2 and 6 tons per acre (though some go lower), and each ton of grapes yields about 60 cases of wine.
